Man, so much has changed over the past few months and I am finally finding time to sit down and get some of my thoughts out of my head and onto the keyboard. I have found myself in a really present, calm, and happy head-space lately, and I have found that my heart-space has followed suit.

In the beginning of November, I made the difficult choice to leave the full-time occupational therapy job I had been at for almost 4 years. That job had been my constant through some of the most difficult, happy, challenging, heartbreaking, and exciting times of my life. I knew that no matter what was going on in my outside world, I could feel safe and at home inside the four walls of that clinic. When I called my wedding off, I only missed 1 day of work. I asked that all of my kids be put back on my schedule and that everyone respect my privacy, but I knew that work was where I wanted to be. It was the only thing that stayed the same when everything else in my life felt like it was changing.

But when the dust settled and I wasn’t fighting so hard just to keep my head afloat, I started noticing my heart and head beginning to wander. I found myself daydreaming about new challenges and bigger purposes. I started thinking that maybe things in my life were calming down so that I could shake things up career-wise, and not have to rely so heavily on the consistency that it had provided.

I accepted a position as the OT department head for a clinic about 30 miles from my house, and I felt challenged, scared, and excited as I started to build out their program. Accepting this job allowed me the ability to stay within a field that I am so passionate about, while also pursuing my dreams of owning my own company and moving toward reaching larger audiences and purposes in order to serve others and give back. Our company launches a month from tomorrow and I couldn’t be more nervous and excited. (More on that in another post, because I could go on and on and on about the process it’s taken to get here, challenges along the way, and all of the reasons I wanted to quit but knew that this was exactly what we are supposed to be doing. I am so excited to share my passion for this company with all of you!!)

The last few months have allowed me to create space to take a step back and look at my life from the outside. I have been forced to sit with the discomfort that exists in being alone on my couch on a Wednesday morning, and bask in the gratitude that comes from that very same experience. I have shifted my perspective and found so much solace and grace in my aloneness. In this sacred space I have created with just myself. In no longer needing to fill that void with the presence of another, and, instead, exploring my thoughts and my needs and myself in the silence. I have found so much wholeness in being alone. And I have learned that this moment is actually what I was searching for all along.

When my dad died, I searched for him everywhere. I spent so many days and nights trying to find him in feathers and signs and the moon and the stars. I just needed to know he is still there, and I can confidently say that I know he is.

When my engagement failed, I searched for love in all the wrong places. I begged people to promise me that love was still out there. That the right person would come along. That I wouldn’t end up alone. I asked for time frames and logistics. I lived in the happily ever after of someone else’s story.
I spent so much time searching for the wrong things in the wrong places, that I didn’t even realize the one thing I needed to find the most was still out there. Still waiting and reaching and hoping I would find her.

But, today, I know what I’m looking for. I know that those that have been lost are always with us and those yet to be found are still waiting just around the corner.
I know this and I trust it and I believe it.
Choosing to stop waiting for life to happen to me has allowed me to breathe life into all of the places I’d been holding my breath. It’s allowed me to wake up and start living all of the things I’d once only dreamt.
I have lost a lot, but I have gained something that all of the loss in the world could never take from me.
It took losing everything I thought I needed to stop and find the only thing I was truly ever supposed to find: myself.